Sunday, May 29, 2011

After Saturday's Littleton rollerski I drove back to Andover, to the high school where the DI Eastern Mass track meet was going on, hoping to catch a couple of the CSU Jrs. in action. I arrived just in time to watch Ellen Goldberg warming up for the discus. Ellen and the discus you ask? Aren't discus throwers generally beefy and muscular? Well, yes, they generally are and Ellen is tall and lean and so I was eager to see how Ellen would do. She was ranked second on the psych sheet for the meet. Discus is a technique event involving a difficult spin move and timing the release just right. From what I could see, Ellen has learned her craft well, making full use of her leverage and flexibility. She had a really nice spin down and arced that disc out over 114 feet! Then in the final she repeated that distance to take the win, with her team mate Tatiana in second. Very impressive!

Next up was Julia Schiantarelli running in the 4 x 800 meter relay. Julia was pretty nervous because her coach at put her in as the anchor leg. Julia's team ran well and handed off to Julia in a little group. Julia Got passed early by one girl, but hung tough with a the group (Andrea Keklak from LS was waltzing home easily in first) and when I yelled at her to hang tough on the back stretch I wasn't convinced she was going to be able to, being in in 8th place at that point, but coming around the far turn Julia started to make a move and in the last 100 m hauled in two girls in front of her to bring her team home in the points in 6th place. Nice running!

Sorry if I missed anyone else at the meet.

Both Ellen and Julia are now headed to the state meet next weekend. Good luck!!

Fabio forwarded the following two photos.

Julia making her move in the last 100m (John Keklak photo)

Ellen and the other NNHS Captains with the 1st place team trophy (Jack Pryor photo)

Saturday, May 21, 2011

I was thinking that somehow I totally missed the Winter All Scholastics section of the Boston Globe, probably because it was the weekend I was in Chicago, so here it is. Sorry for the belated recognition of all the CSUers on the list.

As usual, CSU Jrs. dominated the xc listings. Eli Hoenig and Corey Stock were recognized as Athletes of the Year for their respective wins at States and also at EHS. Congrats to both!

Monday, May 16, 2011

Friday core this week involved a little less mayhem, since I remembered the stick figure drawings to put at each station - things went smoothly. Good times! I took photos of people in various states of agony - 8-min abs is the worst, since we start over if anybody stops - brutal. At least the mosquitos weren't that bad this time.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

A new season begins on a beatiful spring day!!! A good group turned out for today's Littleton season opener with multiple groups heading out on the short 14 mile loop or a long out and back. It was good to be back on the roads and a great day to start the season.

Is this Aim's last dance on snow? Only time and conditions will tell. From last weekend:

I knew in advance it would be the first Saturday since November when I wouldn’t ski. Saturday was the Run of the Charles and I wasn’t going to miss that. But Sunday I got up early and drove to Pinkham Notch. It was going to be a beautiful day and I wanted to ski up and see the Gulf of Slides on the side of Mount Washington, a place I’d never been. The Visitor Center was jammed with Tuckerman Ravine skiers, but as soon as I turned onto the Gulf of Slides ski trail it was much more peaceful.

Since last week a lot of snow is gone. The Gulf of Slides ski trail climbs from about 2000 feet at route 16 in Pinkham Notch to 4200 at the base of the slides. Maintained specifically as a ski trail, it is about 20 feet wide but yesterday only about a third of the width was snow covered and that strip wove excitingly through rocks, stream crossings and numerous vertical challenges. I was climbing on my 160cm metal-edged back-country waxless skis and had a huge uphill advantage over the people with heavy telemark gear but all the way up I kept thinking how difficult the descent would be. Didn’t matter I thought, get up there and see the slides then worry about it.

I spent about 30 minutes at the base the of Main Slide in glorious sunshine, watching the snowboarders and skiers, then turned to go down. I wanted to have plenty of time and was glad there’d be a couple dozen coming behind me in case I needed someone to notice I was lying there injured. The 2000 foot trip down though seemed far less difficult than I’d expected. Some of the telemarkers had expressed wonder than I’d be going down on my light backcountry equipment but with snowplowing and some slide slipping I had no trouble at all. All too soon I was back at route 16 and driving home in time for a nice bike ride with Terry.

Unless Terry can coax me out once more for a Mother’s Day weekend trip, I think I’m done until October. I broke the 270 ski hour barrier for the first time this season and set another personal record by skiing 175 times.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Hannah Smith organized a good CSU Junior mixed relay team for the 24 mile relay race in the Run of the Charles today, along with some good trash talking aimed at the Quinobequin Canoe Club team with 5 CSUers. On the Jr team were Olivia Meyerson and Chris Stock - Leg 1, Cate Brams and Jacob Meyerson - Leg 2, Nick Reitman and Zoe Snow - Leg 3, Rebecca Smith (complete with war paint!) and Calvin Wight - Leg 4 and Hannah Smith and Eli Hoenig - Leg 5. For the QCC, a team that does only this race, were Wes Denering and Gus - Leg 1, Bob and Jim Burnham - Leg 2, Bob B and Bob Kelly - Leg 3, Everett Briggs and Wes - Leg 4 and Rob and Jamie - Leg 5. It was a nice day for a good, hard paddle (or two in the case of Wes and Bob B). There were other skiers out there as well, including Michael Melnikov, Aims Coney, Terry Myers, the Shultz's, down from VT where they still have ice on the water, Weston Tues night racers back in their primary sport Carina Peritore, Dan Rabinkin, Seth Miller, Dave Vandorpe and probably others that I didn't see. One of these days the results will be posted at http://www.crwa.org/

At the start Chris Stock and Olivia Meyerson got off to an excellent start, dropping everyone in their wave immediately, while a few waves back Wes and Gus did the same. The hand offs for leg 2 went pretty smoothly as Cate and Jacob took over for the juniors and the Burnhams for QCC a few minutes later. No one went for a swim this year and the junior boat was much improved through all the legs, but despite the trash talk in the end, experience paddling canoes in a straight line won out over enthusiasm and youth and the old guys in the QCC finished for the 9th year in a row in 1st place, while the Jrs. took the top spot in the mixed category and an excellent 7th overall, moving up 4 spots from last year's team. I suspect that if the race had been all portages and the juniors practiced a bit more the old guys would have been toasted by the Jrs. The water this year was high and fast and at the broken dam in Watertown Rob and I had to negotiate our way through two overturned canoes in the small patch of white water. A fun day to avoid, once again, doing chores at home. The 2011-2012 ski season begins tomorrow!